


Dying to Breathe

by Endellion



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, No Sex, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-13 05:00:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16886085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Endellion/pseuds/Endellion
Summary: Stiles has a breakdown. After everything that's happened he just wants it all to stop.





	Dying to Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> I tagged Stiles and Derek as a relationship but there is nothing that happens between them. Stiles is attracted to Derek and misses him and (in my headcanon) part of him clings to the idea that if Derek had stayed then things would have been okay. Obviously that is not realistic, in light of all the trauma Stiles has experienced I don't personally think that a romantic relationship should be his focus right now. 
> 
> This is not a happy 'fix-it'. I wrote it thinking about everything Stiles had faced as well as some of my own struggles with depression and suicidal ideation. It's not that Stiles wants to die in this, he just wants the pain to end and wants to be able to breathe easier. 
> 
> If you are struggling with any of these issues, please seek help and don't read this if you think it may trigger you.

Stiles felt too strongly. He always had. He felt it like a tidal wave of agony when his mom died. When his dad was drinking too much and crying himself to sleep. When Stiles couldn’t help. He felt it in the fear for Scott when he was bitten. Stiles thought he was losing his friend, his best friend. Only friend. He was angry and scared but he never once thought about giving up on Scott. It wasn’t how he was built. 

His obsession with Lydia went beyond her physical beauty. He saw how she tried to hide her intelligence and it made him angry. Angry that she would play dumb because he could see how fucking brilliant she was. Even after the fireworks of a crush died down, he would have crawled through thorns for her because it was who he was. 

So he should have known that when he loved, really loved, it was going be the most painful thing he’d ever known. He should have known it would feel like his heart was being stabbed, like he was inhaling ash to save the one he loved and damn his lungs because it was worth it. It was worth it. When Derek left, he had still somehow been taken by surprise by the sheer emotion. It was so close to losing his mom that it felt almost blasphemous in some way. 

It was like being underwater. His lungs ached for breath. Even the smoke and grief that hung around Derek was better than this- this hole, where he used to be. Stiles had never felt so alone. Scott seemed to care about everyone else so much more than his so-called best friend. He was into Kira and he worried about anyone getting hurt and he could never do what needed to be done. 

Stiles’ dad barely spoke to him any more. He acted like Stiles couldn’t see the growing collection of alcohol in their home. Everyone was gone or busy and he was on the outside, unable to breathe, wishing Derek was there. Stiles had once had high hopes for his life. He was like an optimistic realist. Whatever that was. But now? Now he didn’t know what life could possibly hold for him any longer that was worth living for. The Nogitsune had hollowed out a space in him and everything he felt made it worse. It was probably better Derek was gone. Stiles was a wreck. 

He loved Derek enough to want better for him than Stiles. It still hurt like fucking glass in his veins. 

When he left Beacon Hills, he honestly didn’t have a destination. He wasn’t planning to go anywhere in specific. He just knew that it would be better for everyone if he went. His dad could move on. Scott might not even notice. Stiles thought that maybe, just maybe, there was air outside of Beacon Hills that wouldn’t hurt to breathe. If Derek was out there somewhere, if he was healing, maybe Stiles could too. 

The note just said, “I love you”. His dad cried when he saw it, but Stiles didn’t know that. He wasn’t there to see it. Scott was bewildered. Kira comforted him but Stiles didn’t care because he wasn’t there to see it. 

Derek took the call from the Sheriff, the only person in Beacon Hills who still had his number. 

Stiles made his way south and stopped in cities too big to care about a seventeen year old passing through. The air was just as hard to breathe and he wondered what it said about him. He wondered why no one else was underwater. He wondered why he still felt like this. Who had said that time healed? Time had not dulled anything. His grief, fear, hollowness, guilt, love, love, love. It all swallowed his heart and snapped at his heals and, oh God, please let there be a place where emotion stopped. Where his own heart couldn’t torment him. 

He drove to the ocean and parked haphazardly, he stumbled onto sand, tennis shoes sinking in and getting full of sand until he kicked them off. He moved doggedly forward in socks, the roar of the waves loud enough to promise white noise for all the trauma that clogged his joints. The sky was cloudy but hints of blue appeared between fluffy patches of white. There was no one else on the beach at this time of the year in this out of the way part of the coast. 

Stiles thought, delirious in the storm of his mind, that if he breathed water in air then maybe he could breathe air in water. Alone, alone, alone, pounded behind his temples and urged him forward even when cold-wet-froth rushed over his feet and soaked his socks through. He got up to his ankles and then his knees and now the water-logged denim of his jeans tried to hold him back. 

His jeans held him back but he couldn’t breathe and-

It wasn’t his jeans. Strong arms, corded with muscle and covered in dark hair wrapped around his middle. 

“No!” Stiles screamed. He wanted to breathe! He wanted to breathe! He didn’t realise he was sobbing as he was pulled backwards, out of the water. The arms pulled him close to a body radiating heat through the chill of wet clothes. The person sat down, away from the rushing waves, and pulled Stiles onto his lap and held on. 

Stiles screamed, his voice going raw. He rocked, fought to be free. He sobbed and wailed and he begged for his mom, his dad, for his ex-best friend and his first crush and his first love. He went limp, gulping for breath and the arms turned him to look at Derek’s face. If he had seen pity he thought he would have died on the spot out of sheer spite. 

Instead there was concern and a gentleness that he had never seen on Derek’s face before, when all there had been was a twisted self-recrimination. 

It looked like Derek had found a way to breathe. Maybe he could tell Stiles how? That would be nice, Stiles thought. He closed his eyes.


End file.
